Mad About Macarons: Guest Post Spotlight

I am honored to welcome to LC, The Queen of the Macarons, Jill Colonna.  Jill is the author of the fantastic book, Mad About Macarons.

Jill's work is consistently witty, smart and well-written.  She's mastered the art of macarons.  Elevating the mac to new heights with varied and eclectic flavor combinations.  Jill always has a surprise up her sleeve.

Here's Jill's gallery on Kitchen Artistry it's a true feast for the eyes.

Please stop by Mad About Macarons check out her work, she's an absolute superstar.  I guarantee you make a classy and sweet new friend.

Enjoy...

It’s great to be on Lazaro Cooks. Personally I wish I could be here in person: somehow living in Miami with continuous BBQ weather must turn you into a real dude. Miami Vice? Pah! Miami's Lazaro should have his own TV show, don’t you think?

No need to go on how Laz rocks, as that’s why you’re here. So what on earth could I make for such a brilliant chef? I thought of Florida’s sun and its citrus fruits, and as I had a few macarons left over (this happens at times), I kept with the same flavour combination and added a couple mini desserts with different textures. I suppose it’s a kind of Café Gourmet à la Laz.

The flavour combination is intriguing. If you’re into refreshing bitter cocktail drinks then this concoction will talk to you.

As one of my favourite pre-dinner summer tipples is a Campari and orange on crushed ice, I first wondered what it would be like to add the same kind of bitter appeal from carcadé. Carcadé is a dark red infusion made from dried hibiscus flowers that I discovered in the sizzling heat in Egypt – and it resurfaced the other day when I was cleaning out my kitchen cupboards (this often happens, too.)

Somehow the infusion’s bitterness quenches your thirst, it’s an antioxidant and it’s pretty addictive. There’s a lot to be said for healthy stuff that’s compulsive eating/drinking! A little added to freshly squeezed blood oranges and topped up with Campari and ice? This reddish-pink cocktail just looked at me and pleaded, “Macaron me, baby.”

Then this macaron said…. Och enough. So this macaron turned into a wee trilogy, served with a blood orange-campari ice cream with hibiscus jelly and an inverted tartlet.

As the recipes could be quite long here, I’m following in Laz’s style by just talking you through it briefly, but if anyone is really interested in me posting the full recipe later, just contact me via MadAboutMacarons.com.

Instead of going for a sorbet, I chose a custardy-based ice cream. Let’s just say when you use whites for making macarons, I’m always looking for egg yolk recipe excuses. In place of 1/10 of the cream, I used Campari and the grated zest of an untreated organic blood orange then served it on blood orange segments and an hibiscus jelly: infused the hibiscus flowers in water, added sugar and pre-soaked gelatine (2g for 200ml infusion.) It’s my adult version of my childhood jelly and ice cream. Note that the ice cream melted quite quickly due to the alcohol content. It’s a beautifully soft ice cream but not ideal for someone like me who’s long at taking photos!

For the inverted tartlet, I blind-baked some short crust pastry and made the tartlet ‘filling’ using

 Egg yolks

·        Superfine sugar

·        Blood orange juice

·        Hibiscus infusion

·        Campari

·        Butter

·        1 sheet of pre-soaked gelatine

then broke up the pastry and plonked it on top. Et voilà.

A Trilogy of Blood Orange, Hibiscus and Campari

Please stop by and say hello to the very talented Jill at Mad About Macarons.

That's it for now...till we exchange a few words again...Peace!